Amber clenched her teeth, hating him, and as her feet kept moving in time to the music she began to plan how she would escape—slip away through some side-door the first time he let her out of his sight. Damn him! she thought. He acts like my grandmother! What’s it to him if I stay or don’t! I’ll go if I—
And then, all unexpectedly, she saw Lady Carlton not more than ten feet away. Corinna was smiling at Almsbury, but she gave a little gasp of surprise as she caught sight of his partner. Amber’s eyes blazed in fury and Corinna looked swiftly away, obviously embarrassed.
Oh, that woman! thought Amber. I hate her, I hate her, I hate her! Look how she minces and smiles and sets her foot so! Hoity-toity! How mightily prim and proper! I wish I was stark naked! That
But suddenly her energy was consumed. She felt weak, lost, helpless.
I’m going to die, she thought wretchedly. I’ll never live through this. My life won’t be worth tuppence to me now—Oh, God, let me die right here, right now—I can’t take another step. For the moment it seemed that Almsbury’s arm was all that kept her from collapsing. Then the music stopped and the crowd began to move about, gathering into groups. Amber, with Almsbury still at her side, pretended to see no one as she made her way among them.
I’m going now, she told herself. And that damned blockhead isn’t going to stop me!
But as she started toward a door he took hold of her arm. “Come over here and meet Lady Carlton.”
Amber jerked away. “What do I want to know her for?”
“Amber, for the love of God!” His voice, scarcely more than a whisper, was pleading with her. “Look about you. Can’t you see what they’re thinking?”
Amber’s eyes again flickered hastily around in time to catch a dozen pairs of eyes which had been fixed upon her glance aside, eyes that glittered, set above mouths that curled with amusement and contempt. Some of them did not even trouble to look away but met her with bold scornful smiles; they were watching, and waiting—
She took a deep breath, linked her arm with Almsbury’s and together they walked toward where Lord and Lady Carlton stood in a group made up of the King, Buckingham, Lady Shrewsbury; Lady Falmouth, Buckhurst, Sedley and Rochester. As they approached, the small gathering seemed to grow quieter —as if expecting something to happen from the mere fact of her presence. Almsbury presented Lady Carlton to the Duchess of Ravenspur and both women, smiling politely, made faint curtsies. Lady Carlton was friendly and gracious and obviously altogether unaware that her husband might know this gorgeous half-naked woman. While the men, including his Majesty, all turned their heads to look at her, their eyes admiring her figure.
But Amber was conscious of no one but Bruce.
For an instant Lord Carlton’s expression might have betrayed him—but no one was looking—and then immediately it changed, he bowed to her as though they were the merest acquaintances. Amber, as their eyes met, felt the world rock and tremble beneath her. The conversation began again and had been going on for several seconds before she was able to follow it: King Charles and Bruce were discussing America, the tobacco plantations, the colonists’ resentment of the Navigation Laws, men the King knew who had gone to make their homes in the New World. Corinna said little, but whenever she did speak Charles turned to her with interest and unconcealed admiration. Her voice was light and soft, completely feminine, and the brief glances she gave Bruce revealed that here was that unheard-of phenomenon in London society: a woman deeply in love with her husband.
Amber wanted to reach out and rake her long nails across that tranquil lovely face.
When the music began again she curtsied, very cool and aloof and with some delicate suggestion of insult, to Corinna, nodded vaguely at Bruce and left them. After that she defiantly began to pretend that she was enjoying herself and was not at all embarrassed by her own nudity. She ate her supper attended by half-a-score of gallants, drank too much champagne, danced every dance. But the evening dragged with interminable slowness, and she thought wearily that it would never end.
After an hour or so the dancers began to disappear into the rooms beyond, where the gaming-tables were set up. Amber, a nervous ache in her back and an agonizing tiredness through every bone, excused herself and went into the dressing-room which had been set aside for the ladies. There they might powder their faces or touch up their lips, adjust a garter or sit down for a few minutes and relax—impossible in the presence of men.
